'Bastions of democracy' falling apart for US

First Afghanistan and Iraq, then the Palestinian Territories and Lebanon, and now Georgia. The Bush administration's goal to bring democracy to troubled regions has been torn to bits.

Russia's ferocious drive to obliterate a US proxy in Georgia is the last pin pulled on Bush's democratic dream.

Whether it is Barack Obama or John McCain, America's new president will awake in 2009 with the view of a world gripped in tension, distrust and anger as a result of 8 years of foreign policy failures by the Bush administration.

Instead of seeking peace in the never-ending Middle Eastern conflict, Bush expanded the peril with talk of his neocon "Clean Break" agenda. The invasion of Iraq was coupled by Israel's failed war against Lebanon, and the prospects of a nuclear Iran are ever more real.

The war in Afghanistan started in 2001 and should have ended in 2001. The Taliban were driven out of the country overnight. All the Americans had to do was invest in the reconstruction of the country and help develop an impoverished, wartorn country's economy. It was this Marshall Plan-type strategy that won the US allies in South Korea, Japan and Germany. Give to the people and they will give back. The Americans gave nothing to Afghanistan, which paved the way for a Taliban return. Now the Karzai government has lost governance in parts of his country, and the Taliban look set for a frightening come back.

And the timebomb the Americans should never have tampered with has just exploded ... the former Soviet republics. Humiliated in the 1990s, Russia has turned around its fortunes, largely due to a fiercely nationalistic leader in Putin and the vast energy resources lying within Russia's borders. The Americans had countless of opportunities to defrost the ice that stood between Washington and Moscow, but instead chose to kick the bear when it was down.

The US sponsored "revolutions" in Ukraine and Georgia that produced anti-Russian regimes. It threw the Baltic states on the NATO bandwagon. It built pipelines in the former Soviet states in the Caucasus and Central Asia. It ignored non-proliferation treaties signed with the Soviets and redrew plans for "star wars" ICBMs. It plans to base missiles in the former Warsaw Pact countries of Poland and Czech Republic. And last but not the least, the US recognised the independence of Kosovo.

The list of American aggravations towards Russia could continue. It was only a matter of time before the bubble popped. Judging by Russia's rapid and large-scale response to Georgia's attack on South Ossetia, the Kremlin had been eagerly waiting for the right moment to reclaim dominance in its backyard.

The United States has failed miserably at managing global affairs under the Bush leadership. Its blunders have not only caused deaths upon thousands throughout the world, but has created great global instability and fear.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Those who drown in their illusions of power will only find themselves destroyed by it. The Bush administration - in line with neocon thinking - has followed a foreign policy of military and economic arrogance and belligerence. Neocon doctrine subscribes to a narrow line of thinking that believes that US interests can be enhanced through the sheer use of military might and economic bullying. Indeed, under Bush, this has been his way of dealing with the world. It has clearly backfired.

Bush departs from the scene in 2008 and will leave behind an unstable Middle East with alarming levels of anti-Americanism; an Iran bent on nuclear proliferation; a Taliban on the road to reconquering Afghanistan; a wartorn Iraq leaning towards Tehran; and a resurgent Russia that has blasted away America's main ally in a vital energy and strategic region in the Caucasus.
That is not to forget the anti-American, left-wing fever that has swept South America, with Hugo Chavez at its helm.

All of which has left the US' place in the world much weaker than what it was in 2000.

The presidential election in November will be among the most crucial elections in America's history as far as the global impact is concerned. The American public must be aware of how pivotal this moment in time is and how careful their votes must be. I fear it maybe too late for the US - either under Obama or McCain - to restore order to a world it has just unravelled.

Anti-corruption Italian comedian/activist a lesson for corrupt Lebanon

For those who haven't already come across Italy's fiesty anti-mafia comedian, Beppe Grillo, the ABC's Foreign Correspondent program this week reported on the activist.

It's worth watching, just click on the link below, which will take you to ABC's new Internet TV service, iView.

http://www.abc.net.au/iview/default2.htm?programId=278034

Italy's political establishment has long been a comedy from afar, but from within the country many people are crying frustration and anger at the blatant corruption. As the documentary reveals, Italy has had a staggering 62 governments in 63 years of 'democracy'.

Mafia bosses, media tycoons and corrupt politicians with conviction records still seem to find their way to power in Italy in the 21st century. The public's anger has catapulted anti-corrupt comedian Beppe Grillo into fame. Perhaps Grillo's most famous achievement was unveiling financial fraud in dairy giant, Parmalat, in 2003.

His arguments, and Italy's joke of a mafioso democracy, strike at the heart of its Mediterranean twin in political corruption ... Lebanon.

Like Italy, the Lebanese have for 60 odd years of independence been submerged in a corrupt political establishment that has shown no signs of disappearing despite bloody civil wars and endless economic failures.

Both Lebanon and Italy are void of independent media and the crucial 'Fourth Estate' of power that holds the other three estates of power in check. The main media in the two countries are openly partisan and are generally owned by political leaders, operating as virtual propaganda mouthpieces.

The Italian comedian states that everyone in Italy knows about the corruption scandals, but thanks to a politically-driven media, no one speaks up. Sound familiar, dear Lebanese? Probably explains why The Daily Star never publish my material.

Grillo, consequently, has been shunned by Italy's mainstream media for daring the undareable - calling for a total overhaul of the political establishment. It is a cry that is also much needed in Lebanon.

Rome and Beirut share similar traits not only in its corrupt political culture, but in a certain public political apathy. The documentary refers to "la dolca vita" in Italy, the sweet and vibrant Italian life encapsulated in natural beauty that serves as a stagnant pill in the drive for political activism.

The scenario isn't much different in Lebanon. The sudden obsession with material possession, brand names, and a bubbling Beirut nightlife have contributed to the political fatigue, and soured the call for desperate change. Many Lebanese, like many Italians, prefer to ignore the political corruption stifling their daily lives by indulging in alluring material riches.

When it comes to election time, Italians and Lebanese alike still vote into power the same corrupt officials that they deeply disdain. It is a preference vote for a corrupt status quo that they have grown accustom to, than the dangerous uncertainty if challenged.

The flock are no doubt fed up, all they need is to be galvanised by someone willing to take that challenge. Italy has found its shepherd to lead its idle, yet angry sheep in Beppe Grillo.

The galvanising Grillo offers no political solution, and declares no intention to dive into politics, but still manages to draw tens of thousands of supporters to open-air concerts and rallies that are determined to overthrow the establishment and knock some sense into the country. It is Italy's wake up call.

Now we just need to find Lebanon's wake up call.

Click to access Grillo's world famous blog.

Rwanda: France took part in 1994 genocide

Kigali has released a 500-page-report accusing France of direct involvement in the 1994 genocide. France has strenuously denied Rwandan accusations of its involvement, just as the US and Israel also deny repeated human rights violations.

What does this mean for world human rights justice? Is it ok for the West to summon war criminals from the third world, such as the Balkans and the Middle East, while its own atrocities pass unnoticed?

It was a courageous step by Rwanda, a tiny poverty-stricken African country, to take it up to the rich and powerful France with this report, a clear sign that not all proxies and former European colonies are going to be pushed, humiliated and butchered by Western powers.

The Rwandan report may have its hints of bias since President Kagame and Paris have long been at odds. Nevertheless, it does indicate that an independent UN, EU or French inquiry is urgently required to examine the findings of the Rwandan report and follow due course to pursue whatever legal action is necessary.

France has long meddled in Lebanese, Middle Eastern and African affairs from a high pedestal, patronising its former colonies for its misdemeanours. The Lebanese and the Arabs have long looked to France as the power that could be neutral in the Middle East and come to its aid when in need. But allegations of heinous French crimes against humanity in Africa should signal a warning to Lebanese ... don't trust the French.

The former colonies have long accused 'mother France' of being nothing but a hypocritical Western power seeking its own interests. In the current age where France, and indeed other Western powers, are fighting to maintain their legitimacy in the affairs of third world states, Paris needs to demonstrate leadership, swallow its own rhetoric on human rights and investigate the Rwandan allegations against its high officials.

Failure to do so will simply add credence to the ex-colonies' distrust of the West, make it more difficult for the West to influence the Third World on human rights issues, and prove the latter's claim right—that France and the West are hypocrites.

Good articles from The Times on the subject:

An article by Linda Melvern, for full article, click here:

Drawing on documents recently released from the Paris archive of Mitterrand, the commission clearly describes the motive for French policy in Rwanda. These documents show how the RPF invasion was considered as clear aggression by an Anglophone neighbour on a Francophone country. The RPF was a part of an “Anglophone plot”, involving the President of Uganda, to create an English-speaking “Tutsi-land”. Once Rwanda was “lost” to Anglophone influence, French credibility in Africa would never recover. The policy was to avoid a military victory by the RPF.

My own work has shown that not all French military operatives left Rwanda when the UN peacekeepers arrived in 1993. When the genocide began six months later there were senior French officers attached to key units in the Rwandan Army - the para-commando and reconnaissance battalions, and the Presidential Guard. It was French-trained soldiers from these units who, early in the morning of April 7, had orders to eliminate members of Rwanda's political opposition - and to kill anyone with a Tutsi identity card. Without a full accounting from these French officers the story of the crucial early hours of genocide will never be complete. To date only three French officers have testified at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda - and only then in defence of Rwandan military officers on genocide charges.

An older article from 2006 by Andrew Wallis, for full version, click here:

As the body count grew, France welcomed ministers of the genocidal Government to an official reception in Paris. Meanwhile, its military continued to send arms to bolster its Hutu allies in power, regardless of the genocide they were perpetrating.

BBC article below:

Rwanda report raises issue of motive

Martin Plaut, 05/08/08

A Rwandan report naming 33 senior French military and political figures for their alleged role in the 1994 genocide raises a number of issues.

For the French there is the problem of how to deal with the commission's detailed allegations against eminent figures.

Late President Francois Mitterrand, former Prime Minister Edouard Balladur, as well as two men who went on to become prime minister - Alain Juppe, foreign minister at the time, and his then chief aide, Dominique de Villepin - are all accused of having had a hand in such terrible events.

Allegations of this kind have been made before.

The French military were certainly involved in advising the Rwandan army prior to the genocide and their precise role during the genocide is far from clear.

Yet the fact that Rwanda has decided to publish such a damning report, making such detailed allegations against another country, makes the report extremely unusual.

Diversion tactic?

It certainly raises questions about Rwanda's motivation in taking this step.

The public reason given is a search for justice.

As Rwanda's Minister of Justice Tharcisse Karugarama put it to the BBC, those responsible for the Jewish Holocaust are still being hunted down decades after World War II, so why should we rest while the people behind the genocide are still at large?

But other reasons have spurred Rwanda to take this step.

Chief among them has been an iron determination to keep the world's attention focused on the genocide, rather than on the role of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), the force that took power in 1994, bringing President Paul Kagame to power.

In recent years uncomfortable questions have been raised about the war crimes the RPF are alleged to have committed during and after 1994.

While stressing there can be no equation between genocide and war crimes, Alison Des Forges of Human Rights Watch says RPF leaders do have a case to answer.

"Their victims also deserve justice," she says.

The case against the RPF:

• The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda was mandated to look at all crimes committed in 1994, yet with their mandate supposed to run out by the end of this year they have so far failed to indict any members of the RPF.
• In 2006 a French judge, Jean-Louis Bruguiere, issued arrest warrants against nine of President Paul Kagame's senior officials, alleging their complicity in the murder of the late Rwandan President, Juvenal Habyarimana, in April 1994 - the event that sparked off the genocide.
• And in February 2008 a Spanish judge, Fernando Andreu, issued international arrest warrants against 40 senior Rwandan officials for crimes allegedly committed in the 1990s.

Painful questions

There is also a political dimension.

Since the RPF took power, relations with France have been distinctly cool.

President Kagame and his closest associates come from a group of English-speaking Tutsi refugees who grew up in Uganda.

The country has moved away from the French sphere of influence in Africa and towards the Anglophone bloc.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is now an adviser of President Kagame, and former American President Bill Clinton is a close friend.

Rwanda believes it does not need France and feels free to raise painful questions about Paris's role in the genocide.

Why the Doha Round of talks died

Many world capitals are expressing their disappointment at the collapse of WTO talks that would have created a landmark global trade agreement.

Fingers are pointing at the regular three who seem to butt heads at global economic talks ... the US and the Asian powerhouses, India and China.

Australia's PM, Kevin Rudd, stayed up until the early hours of the morning playing desperate diplomacy by phone with world leaders, attempting to salvage a last minute deal. He failed. Indeed, so has the world. The EU also expressed bemusement at the collapse of the talks, but stopped short of conceding a complete end to hopes of a global free trade agreement.

The failure of the talks will increase pressure on national economies to deal with the current global crises such as oil, soaring food prices, and the credit crunch. Nonetheless, it will encourage nations to pursue their own bilateral free trade agreements and form trade blocs. Whether that increases instability and fails to bridge the poor-rich divide remains to be seen.

Australia and Chile showed no signs of wasting time as they quickly ratified a bilateral free trade agreement in the face of the collapsed WTO talks.

Below is a very insightful article in regards to the 'why' the talks failed, alluding to the inevitable impacts of globalisation.

Why the Doha Round of talks finally died

Carl Mortished
July 30, 2008
The Times

The bricks are crumbling in the house of global trade and the Brics, those fashionable emerging markets of Brazil, Russia, India, China, are crumbling, too, wracked by inflation, slackening growth and the flight of hot money.

In Geneva, Kamal Nath, the Indian Trade Minister, was gritting his teeth, doing his best to justify a wrecking operation that has earned him brickbats from all round. He has brought to an end a seven-year struggle for a global trade agreement that would open borders and reduce subsidies and he knows it.

However, he was not looking at his negotiating partners, the Brazilian, American, European and Argentinian ministers. He had his eyes fixed on Delhi, where the Indian Reserve Bank Governor was raising interest rates and signalling an economic slowdown.

Mr Nath's problem was the wretched farmers, not the East Anglian sugar barons or the American cotton kings, so often the butt of abuse. There is another group of farmers who wallow in subsidies, wreck government budgets and who demand high tariff walls to keep out imports of cheaper food.

These are India's peasantry and their political power is being felt on a global scale. Mr Nath could not afford to ignore them: India's rural population numbers 600 million, the last BJP Government was brought down for ignoring them and this Congress Party Government is unlikely to make that mistake.

The Indian farmers' demand for protection against import surges was the main obstacle to the tariff-cutting deal that failed in Geneva.

Mr Nath insisted on a “special safeguard mechanism” for certain agricultural products, notably pepper and oilseeds, that would allow India to impose swingeing tariff increases in the event of import surges.

It was a bizarre but alarming sideshow to the main thrust of the Doha Round of talks - a complex quid pro quo in which the emerging markets of Latin America and the Far East sought to trade access to EU and US agricultural markets in return for opening their doors to more American and European manufactured goods and services.

The Indian Trade Minister was casting himself in the guise of peasant victim, perched precariously on a bullock cart, accusing rich nations of “looking for commercial interests and enhancing prosperity rather than looking for content which reduces poverty”.

But India was opposed not just by the United States but by a host of developing nations in Latin America, including Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina, which see Asia as their prime export market for meat, grain and oilseeds. Rice-exporting Thailand was also unhappy about the Indian demand.

In its favour, India has been joined by China - another nation with a big hinterland of peasant poverty - which wants protection for its rice and soya bean farmers, and a host of smaller developing nations riding on their coat-tails.

The trade row finally destroyed the fiction beloved by development charities and poverty lobbysits that we live in a world divided between North and South, or rich and poor.

Instead, we live on a globe of powerful and conflicting interest groups - Asian peasants versus Latin American farm labourers, for example. Within the WTO, factions are appearing, combining and dissolving at a rapid rate. Among some of the powerful interest groups that emerged three years ago to take on the consumer giants of Europe and America, cracks are opening.

The Group of 20, an emerging market body dedicated to attacking EU and US farm tariffs and subsidies, has lost cohesion. India has split with the Latin American pro-farm trade group. It now leads a Group of 33 nations, including many Caribbean states, angling for more protection for their rural populations.

Unfortunately, the emerging market powerhouses are looking a bit sickly. Their stock markets are plummeting and their economies are gripped by inflation and stuttering as export trade begins to slow. The clamour for protection from those who were beginning to see the benefits of trade has drowned out those who argued for compromise.

It is small wonder that India and China are championing the cause of peasants, because governments in both countries fear the wrath of rural communities suffering from rising fuel and food prices and the cost of credit.

The solution preferred in Delhi and Beijing is protection, but it is costly and India is already paying dearly for it. The country's budget deficit doesn't look too bad at 3 per cent of GDP, but that excludes fuel and fertiliser subsidies. Add those and the deficit is a shocking 7 per cent of GDP. Yet the Government has no choice but to pay to keep peasants on the farm. The average of India's maximum agricultural tariffs is more than 100 per cent and Mr Nath argued yesterday for measures to let it go higher still.

China, too, is ruled by the economics of the farm, not factories of Guangdong. According to Standard Chartered, the cost of food, which absorbs more than a third of income, is beginning to hit spending. Food is crowding out consumer goods, exposing the risk that China's factories will struggle to find domestic buyers to replace insolvent Americans.

There are no Brics, the world is coupled; exports represent 40 per cent of Chinese GDP and it is clear that politicians in Beijing and Delhi fear a slowdown that will shut down factories, reduce the safety valve of migration to the cities, transforming the rural migrant into a potential constituent of a mob.

It is political fear that ended the trade talks in Switzerland, fear of the countryside rampant.

[Antoun]: Another short, but decent article on the same lines:

Where now for global free trade?

Owen Fairclough,
July 30,2008
France 24

It was the seven-year itch that proved too painful to scratch any longer. The on-off Doha round of talks that ran since 2001 finally ran out of steam in Switzerland.

The end was marked by an air of weary resignation - testament perhaps to the toll that nine days of talks took on those who slugged it out in Geneva.

There was genuine upset among many ministers that a single technical issue - special import safeguards to protect developing countries - torpedoed the talks.

Only the most punch-drunk boxers think about the next fight when they're lying on the canvas after a fifteenth round knockout, and those gathered in Geneva didn't oblige. Instead the assessments were brutally bleak: Brazil's foreign minister Celso Amorm reckons it could be at least three or four years before anyone has the appetite to mention global free trade deal.

Even EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson, one of the ardent fans of free trade, doesn't see any prospect for resolving the core areas of lowering agriculture and industrial import tariffs in the near future.

Of course, it's easy to be alarmist when tempers are running high and fuses have been shortened by so many hours cooped up in the Green Room - the WTO's theatrical term for the candid discussions that unfolded over the past week and half.

Let's not forget that the Doha round collapsed in Cancun, Mexico, in September 2003. But by July the following year, the talks were back on.

The difference now is that those talks were held in a booming economic climate. The Geneva talks were conducted against a backdrop of rocketing food and oil prices, with some of the world's richest countries heading for recession.

No one's much in the mood for worrying about how the rest are faring: governments necessarily need to look after their own.

There's also a more immediate problem than trying to get everyone to open their diaries for a new Doha date. As the Geneva talks were biting the dust, Chile's foreign minister, Alejandro Foxley, was in Australia to wrap up an 850 million dollar free trade deal. It'll provide the two countries with tariff-free trade in raw materials like metals and products like wine.

Both Chile and Australia have been on-message with the WTO, lobbying other countries to open up their markets. But Foxley's suggestion that countries like Australia, Chile, South Korea, Canada, Mexico and Brazil could press ahead with their own trade deals should set alarm bells ringing in Geneva.

"There is something to be said that a group of countries like this should go ahead in trying to generate a result, better certainly that the one that was not achieved in Geneva," Foxley told reporters.

It's the kind of trade deal that flies in the face of the WTO's multilateral rhetoric. And as the global credit crunch exposes the perils of globalisation - for financial markets at least - the very concept of mulilateralism is likel

Karadzic trial exposes Lebanon hypocrisy

Serbia is on the verge of extraditing Bosnian war criminal Radovan Karadzic, accused mastermind of the infamous Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men.

The high-profile extradition follows a number of significant cases in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), including former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and Croatian general Ante Gotovina.

It isn't the first war crimes tribunal that has been setup to investigate cases of ethnic cleansing and other war atrocities. The Hague has hosted a number of cases for the major war crimes committed in the 1990s, including Rwanda. No doubt it will continue to serve a role in bringing justice to ongoing and future conflicts. A tribunal for the current ethnic cleansing in Darfur has already been earmarked.

But international justice isn't just limited to The Hague. The United Nations has actively pursued and developed an internal war crimes tribunal in Cambodia for the gross human suffering inflicted upon its population by the notorious Pol Pot in the 1970s.

I do recall as a child hearing often the famous five warzones/human disaster places of the world ... Bosnia, Rwanda, Afghanistan, Cambodia and Lebanon.

For three of the above, some form of justice is being pursued, and the Afghanistan conflict is still sadly ongoing, which leaves Lebanon as the only country not to receive any justice for its brutal 1975 - 1990 civil war.

The Lebanese civil war claimed 150,000 - 200,000 innocent lives, many of whom are still missing. The conflict pitted sectarian tribes and ideological factions against one another as foreign powers fed their proxies with fuel and ammunition. Heinous crimes were committed ranging from massacres, the pillaging of villages, and entire ethnic cleansing of regions.

Yet, unlike the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Cambodia, the masterminds of Lebanon's notorious conflict are still in power in the country today.

To date, there has not been a single case filed in any court in the world against a Lebanese war leader for crimes against humanity. The war criminals are spread across the entire Lebanese political spectrum. Neither the pro-Syrian nor the pro-Israeli/American leaders are exempt of bloody guilt, but amazingly not a single one has ever been summoned before a war crimes tribunal.

Instead, Lebanon's hedonistic attitude (akin to that of the former Yugoslav countries) and hypocritical Western self-interests have meant that Lebanese warlords not only escape the music for their sins, but retain their power.

Here are some leaders that should be sitting alongside Karadzic at The Hague, to name a few:

Samir Geagea, leader for the right-wing Maronite (Catholic) Lebanese Forces faction that was responsible for the infamous massacre of the Palestinian refugee camps, Sabra and Chatila, in 1982, is now an active leader in the US-backed March 14 coalition with a number of members in cabinet. The Sabra and Chatila massacres claimed between 700 - 2,000 lives.

His supporters claim that fellow LF frontman, Elie Hobeika, was largely responsible, but as one of the leaders and main commanders of the LF at the time, there is no doubt Geagea's guilt can't be totally absolved. In addition, the Sabra and Chatila massacres are but a number of war crimes committed by the LF and Samir Geagea during the conflict. Regardless, no court or tribunal has ever investigated war crimes committed by Geagea.

Geagea did, however, serve time for a war-related crime, the assassination of former Prime Minister Rashid Karami, but was released as part of a political bargain in 2005. Human rights groups assert that Geagea didn't receive a fair trial, which is perhaps true, but freedom and subsequent political power should not have been the reward.

Nabih Berri, leader of the pro-Syrian Shia Amal Movement, was one of the main players in the civil war. Amal worked as the main pro-Syrian faction, and was the main Shia militia before Hezbollah gained ascendancy in the late 1980s. Amal fought bloody battles that inflicted greivous harm upon Palestinian refugees and Lebanese civilians, particularly in Beirut. Berri's bloodiest campaign was the Camp Wars, which claimed the lives of thousands of Palestinian refugees.

Berri is currently the Speaker of Parliament, the highest post awarded to a Shia, and Hezbollah's main ally.

Walid Jumblatt, leader of the Druze, Progressive Socialist Party (PSP), is one of the most influential leaders in the US-backed March 14 coalition. He has long held cabinet positions, both under Syrian reign and now with tacit US support. The atrocities he masterminded in the civil war seem a distant memory, as foreign powers (both Arab and Western) continue to reward Jumblatt with key positions of power in Lebanon's fragile political setup.

A brutal militia during the war, the PSP fought Samir Geagea's LF in the famously known "Mountain War". The PSP ethnically cleansed Christian mountain villages, pillaging homes and massacring thousands of Christians in the process.

Assad Hardan, leader of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP), was the head of the SSNP's militant wing during the civil war. A staunch ally of the Syrian regime, the SSNP concentrated their militant efforts mainly against Israel's occupation force, but also conducted a series of war crimes against Israel's right-wing Christian allies in Lebanon. Hardan collaborated closely with the Syrian intelligence to do much of their dirty work.

The list could go on. Yasser Arafat was another accessory to the 15-year bloodletting in Lebanon, and the sins of the current Palestinian leaders in Lebanon did not die with Arafat. Palestinian militias wreaked havoc in Christian regions, claiming thousands of lives. Many of the leaders and militiamen who committed such atrocities still reside in the heavily armed Palestinian refugee camps.

Terrorists and war criminals walk freely in Lebanon, instigating mayhem, all at the behest of the foreign powers who have vital strategic interests in this tiny country.

The Lebanese people are also guilty of failing to break their hedonistic tradition and appropriate an internal fair and independent judicial system.

The Lebanese warlords granted themselves amnesty at the end of the civil war, largely overseen by Saudi Arabia. The amnesty has resulted in forgotten graves, corrupt power and continued instability. The door has never been closed on Lebanon's dark past, which is blinding it from pursuing a bright future. Anger and hurt is silently swept under a restive carpet, but the days in which this rage can be contained are numbered. Unless the skeletons of the past are put in their closet, our future will remain bleak.

The United Nations and the Western powers have turned a selective blind eye on Lebanon's right to a war crimes tribunal, effectively denying Lebanon the same human rights awarded to other warzones.

I hail the UN and the EU for successively pressing Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia to hand over the criminals that many in these countries deem as heroes. We, too, consider the likes of Geagea, Jumblatt, Berri and Hardan as heroes, but our hedonism doesn't excuse these warlords of their crimes. The human rights conventions needs to be applied to all countries of the world, not a select few.

I am equally disappointed in the world's major human rights organisations and NGOs for ignoring this obvious anomaly in global justice. Not a single organisation, not a single government, and not a single leader in the world has ever proposed a war crimes tribunal for the Lebanese civil war. That is not simply a mockery of the international criminal justice system and every enshrined human rights convention, but an insult to the tens of thousands of innocents who lost their lives, and the hundreds of thousands more who lost their homes.

We are all entitled to human rights, and that includes Lebanon.

Spotlight on FPM

I apologise for the extended absence from this blog. I took a bit of time off and wondered through the magnificent centre of Australia in a campervan. I have some writings on my trip, which I may share at a later date.

But it appears that so much has passed in the Middle East since I was away. Bashar al-Assad was welcomed in Paris, Israel finally agreed to a prisoner exchange with Hizballah (2 years after the request was made), and Lebanon at last received a national unity government.

Although it may appear that the reconfiguration of ministerial seats will only be accompanied by further political wrangling and shafting, I sincerely hope that isn't the case. There is a key difference with this ministerial make-up. For the first time, Michel Aoun's FPM has received a fair slice of the pie. Commentators have speculated the various reasons why, but that is of little interest to me.

The political wrangling and manouvring between the various parties and their regional patrons is not the subject of this post. Instead, it's what should be the focus of all Lebanese cabinet ministers that has attracted me to write ... the Lebanese people and our ailing economy.

The FPM have been awarded - what I believe to be - three key ministeries where they can make a sharp difference on the daily Lebanese life and make significant improvements to long neglected sectors of Lebanese industry ... electricity, telecommunications and agriculture.

The reasons why I have highlighted the FPM's role in the cabinet are as follows:

1/ The FPM are new additions to the Lebanese government
2/ The FPM is a party that has long demanded key cabinet positions because it believes it can implement significant reforms
3/ The FPM arrived on the Lebanese scene under the banner of reform, offering so-called Western, first-world solutions to Lebanese mediocrity

Well, it now has its chance to fulfil its promise to the Lebanese people. Who it strikes political deals with isn't what will give the FPM its credibility, its biggest challenge is now. They hold a position of power, what are they going to do with it?

Here's what I would like to see happen:

Electricity
Lebanon in the 21st century still isn't providing electricity for its citizens on a 24 hour basis. Yet, citizens are required to pay 2 electricity bills. The industry is severely underdeveloped, and investment is lacking, which can be attributed to 15 years of Syrian sponsored corruption.

In addition, Lebanon's current power stations are a heavy burden on the environment. The Zouk power plant, for example, chokes the northern Beirut suburbs and is incredibly harmful to the environment, as well as the health of the citizens.

The lack of electricity is also a burden on industry and our economy. We cannot develop industrial sectors if we cannot provide electricity.

What can be done?

First and foremost, the Minister of Electricity needs to privatise the industry to entice investors to build power plants and operate the country's electricity.

Second, the Minister needs to allocate zones in secure regions that co-ordinate with residential towns/suburbs and the environment, so as to avoid any further embarrassment of having a smoking plant (Zouk) in a tourist town.

Third, the Minister needs to acquire the necessary funds that will entice investors in Lebanon so that the country is receiving electricity 24/7 from power plants, alleviating the people's reliance on unsafe, polluting generators.

I'm no expert, and I'm sure all the above involves a lot of work, and work that the FPM can now do. The desired outcome is:

1/ Electricity from power plants 24/7

2/ The reduction of generators

3/ One electricity bill for users

4/ The nationalisation of the electricity grid

5/ A variety of energy outlets as a result of privatisation

6/ An end to the stifling Lebanese corruption that is preventing electricity from improving

Telecommunications
Another embarrassment for a country in the 21st century, Lebanon has one of the most expensive telecommunication rates in the world. Again, I attribute this to inadequate bureaucracy and corruption. This is another unnecessary expense that Lebanese are burdened to pay.

What can the Minister do?

1/ Push in telecommunication laws that regulate the industry, removes the current monopoly, ends corruption and restricts companies from overpricing. This will lower prices significantly, entice more competitors into the market, which will improve the infrastructure and technology.

2/ Dramatically invest in telecommunications technology. Lebanon is a tiny country, there is no excuse preventing the entire country from accessing broadband. Dial-up is the thing of the 90s, we're approaching 2010 and we're still far behind.

The desired outcome?

1/ An end to corruption in the industry

2/ An end to the monopoly

3/ Significantly lower prices

4/ Improved infrastructure, providing the entire country with broadband and naked DSL services

5/ More competitors and outlets

Agriculture
Agriculture has always been a traditional industry in Lebanon since the days of the Canaanites. So why isn't it a profitable business today in 2008?

There is great potential to be made from this industry. We have farms and fields already established, but not the business smart and appropriate investment to make it competitive in the global market.

The FPM needs to:

1/ Invest and support farmers, awarding farmers grants to establish their business and acquire state-of-the-art farming technology and equipment

2/ Find suitable markets abroad for our products through the introduction of agencies that liaise between local producers and potential buyers

3/ Appropriately zone farming and agricultural regions

4/ Locate under-developing or potential agricultural regions and develop them eg. Koura is the olive capital of the country, yet there are very few farms that are mass-producing olive-related products from cosmetics to olive oil, why?



What needs to be made public are strategies. I'm aware all the other political parties have had their stint at governance and haven't exactly done the best of jobs. The FPM has promised since its inception that it is the right party to lead the country. Many eyes will be fixed upon the FPM to see whether its promises are genuine or simply empty rhetoric. The Lebanese are too familiar with rhetoric. The FPM's credibility is on the line.

Australia seeks an assertive international role

It's been roughly seven months since Australia's centre-left Labor Party swept to power, ending 11 years of conservative (at times neo-conservative) rule and installing former diplomat Kevin Rudd at the helm.

Under the conservative John Howard, Australia's foreign policy was all but void of an independent voice. Canberra retained a two-step distance behind US foreign policy, following Washington on every point and controversy.

Howard's Australia went to war against Iraq when the world and the UN wouldn't, stood hand-in-hand with Bush's refusal to sign Kyoto, attempted to sell uranium to India after the US signed a nuclear deal with Delhi, and vigorously supported American and Israeli peace-destroying policies in the Middle East, among many.

Australia was indeed a puppet state.

But no longer.

Rudd has only been in power for just over half a year and Australia is witnessing a remarkable come back to the international stage, unveiling foreign policies that occasionally conflict with Washington.

In seven months, Rudd has withdrawn troops from Iraq; ratified Kyoto; pushed nuclear non-proliferation with the call for an international committee; and called for a regional Asia-Pacific economic and security grouping on the lines of the EU that would incorporate China, India and the US.

Local critics have labelled Rudd's assertive foreign policies as over-stretching Australia's middle-power status. That may be so, and some of Rudd's plans - such as the regional Asia-Pacific group - may be ambitious, but what it does signal is that Australia is pursuing its own foreign interests without the United States.

Undoubtedly, Australia relies heavily on the security blanket the US offers, but is this decades-old mentality that white Australia is going to be swallowed by over-breeding Asians simply a matter of xenophobic paranoia? Do we really need such a deeply entrenched alliance with Washington? Is our alliance with the United States actually enhancing our protection in Asia, or endangering it?

Rudd's overtures to China - the world's tipped next superpower - appear to be a means to entrench Sino-Australian ties so deeply that any future conflict pinning the West against China would see Canberra play the arbiter, protected from both sides. If Australia maintains its distance from Asia by hiding behind Washington's shoulder (as Howard did), are we inviting potential animosity from the likes of Beijing and Delhi?

It appears increasingly convenient that Australia's centre-left foreign policies are coinciding with the close of Bush's neocon reign and Barack Obama's rise with promises and policies akin to Rudd's.

Is Australia's turnaround from neocon belligerence to liberal multilateralism a sign of what's to come from Barack Obama?

Indeed, not all is perfect.

The withdrawal of Australian troops from Iraq was met with a redeployment to Afghanistan.

Rudd, under pressure from Australia's powerful Jewish lobby, still toes a staunchly pro-Israeli line in the Middle East, much to the displeasure of Australia's political elite. Former Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, recently criticised Rudd and Howard's biased approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict, and urged Australia's leaders to revert to the neutral stance it once maintained in the region.

That appears unlikely, but debate and criticism of Israel is much more prominent in Australia than in the United States. For example, Malcolm Fraser did not receive the massive backlash given to former US President Jimmy Carter following his own public criticism of Israel's apartheid-like treatment of Palestinians. Public opinion in Australia swung sharply against Israel during its widely-covered onslaught of Lebanon in 2006.

If Rudd's Australia is any indication of what could be under an Ob-a-merica, then the world can sigh a heavy relief after years of neocon turmoil...if Obama wins.